Just then the shamesh came in.
“Yes, I’m late. I know. But I told you I would be late, so it’s not too bad, right? Mr. Klein, I’m so glad to see you again.”
“So you do know him?” I said.
“Of course I know him.”
“But when a few days ago I asked you, Do you know Mr. Klein, you said no.”
I wondered if he would again say, Is Prague.
“Why didn’t you say Phishl Klein? You know how many Kleins are in Prague? Some Jews, some not. There are more Kleins in Prague than frogs.” And he laughed. “Phishl Klein of course I know.” The shamesh said a few words in Czech to K, then turned to me and said, “Mr. Klein has been very generous to the shul over the years, and I thank him again for that.”
K bowed his head in appreciation. “Shamesh, do me a favor.”
The shamesh looked quizzically at him, as if about to scold him for something. “So you want to show him the attic, is that it? But I already told the yungerman there is no attic here.”
“But I already told you I was up there. I spent the war years there. There I was saved.”
“I know you told me that. Maybe you were. But now there is no attic there.”
“And it is up there, in your nonexistent attic, that I studied English.” K turned to me. “As you can see, we have had this argument before.”
The shamesh was silent.
“May I go up?”
Who said that? Me or K?
“Of course,” the shamesh said. “Just by yourself.” He shook his head, exasperated. “I don’t understand you. It’s all a myth.” He turned to me. “I showed you there is no attic there first time I met you, right?”
“We live and die for myths,” I said.
“And, anyway,” the shamesh continued, “the holy Maharal forbade anyone from going up there, a prohibition in effect for more than four hundred years.” He stopped for a moment, then added, “Look, I don’t deny myths. I don’t deny the power of words, but they cannot create a ladder to nowhere.”
“Do you have a ladder here?” I asked.
“No.”
“With or without rungs?”
The shamesh said, “Without.”
The vast space of the Al-tnigh hummed as we looked at each other in silence. What would happen next?
K spoke.
“Would you like to hear about miracles? About incredible, unbelievable events?”
“I collect miracles,” the shamesh said. From his jacket he pulled out a little hand-painted wooden box. He lifted the lid. “Speak and I’ll store it here.”
“Only in quantum physics can you encounter something that spins while standing still,” K declared. “Or an object that is both solid and fluid at the same time. Or an atom that can be in two places at the same time.”
At this the shamesh gave me a quick look of complicity — his eyebrows wagged up and down for a moment — as if to say: Remember what I told you about the atoms and quantum physica?
“Seems to contradict laws of nature, right?” K continued. “Miraculous? And only on one planet in a universe composed of 220 billion stars was life formed, and only here is it sustained. Now if these incredible, impossible things are true, why can’t an unnatural event such as occurred with me take place, in an attic that is and isn’t there?”
The shamesh looked down at the floor. He put the lid back on his miracle box and returned it to his pocket. His eyes were moist. Was it his normal weepy look, or had K’s words touched him?
“Do you want to see it?” the shamesh asked laconically.
“Not anymore,” said K.
“Did you see the golem?” the shamesh asked him.
I thought K would pull out a little pocket mirror and hold it before the shamesh’s face.
“Who do you think fed me?” K replied.
Was that a joke? Or was that also true? For I remember K telling me that Elijah’s raven had brought him food.
K stretched out his hand and bade the shamesh goodbye. “Thank you, shamesh. Stay well. Continue your good work for many years to come…. Now come, my boy, I want to show you something you’ve never seen before.”
“That synagogue?”
“No. Not yet.”
From the little alley on the side of the Altneu we turned right into Prague’s Madison Avenue, Parizska Street. A few minutes’ walk away was a statue I had seen before of a seated Good Soldier Schweik, sitting in amiable fellowship at a round metal table with two friends. He had obviously had a mug or two of beer. K stopped in front of Schweik and began softly to speak to him. All I needed now was for Schweik to answer and it would have sealed my membership in Prague’s Theater of the Absurd.
Did I see Schweik wink, or was it my overheated imagination, seeing things that couldn’t be seen? The language K spoke wasn’t Czech or any other language I didn’t understand; it was more like the language Jiri and Betty had used to confuse my thoughts.
“Is that Czech?”
“A version Schweik understands. The working-class dialect.”
“I see. And who are the two chaps with him?”
“I know only one. The chubby fellow next to him is the author, Hašek.”
“Do I look anything like him?”
K’s glance said: Why in the world are you asking that? But he looked at my face and at Hašek’s.
“No. Not at all. Why?”
“A girl here told me I looked like him. I didn’t like being compared to that fat guy.”
“She meant it as a compliment. In Prague slang, a good-looking man is always compared to Hasek.”
I don’t know if I bought it. I looked at K. At that moment he had the innocence of Schweik. How could I not believe him?
“By the way,” he said, “did you know that Hasek owes his worldwide fame for The Good Soldier Schweik to Max Brod? With his typical generosity of spirit, he worked enthusiastically on Hašek’s behalf to get the book published.”
I nodded, listened with half an ear, but I was interested in something else.
“May I ask you a question?”
He must have sensed what I was about to say, for he gave me a warning look.
“Not about that. That is a closed issue.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about what you did. It’s still hard to believe,” I said, “hard to understand why you cut yourself off.”
“I didn’t want to be K anymore.”
I shook my head. “Please forgive me for pursuing this. But your friendship with Brod. You loved him. You appreciated his generosity of spirit. He was like a brother; more than a brother. I read his book. You were like Jonathan and David. Inseparable.”
“Yes. That was the most difficult. I regret it to this day.”
“So please, please explain it.”
“I can’t. I cannot. I try to come up with reasons. I think about it. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a regret that spins like a never ending top in my mind. It haunts me. I can’t explain it.”
“Maybe it was ego.”
“Maybe,” K said.
“Or desire for drama.”
“Could be. But I still can’t explain it.”
“Not only the false death that Doctor Klopstock agreed to. But to continue the sham for decades.”
“Then I had a reason. Dora. But in retrospect I can’t explain it. It has run its course and now it’s too late to change. I don’t know. I admit it. I just don’t know.”
Tears sprang into his eyes. No wonder the word “sprang” is used with tears. They did not well up slowly, reflecting the slow buildup of feelings, the eyes moisten, then the tears coming. But here “sprang” is correct. Like a sudden hemorrhage they came, the tears.
“There are lots of things I know,” K continued, “but this I truly don’t know. Celine writes about the gratuitous act. This may be one. It’s like a runaway train on a downhill run. Once started, no turning back. Don’t you think I’ve asked myself countless times, Why did you do it? Why did you fake your death? I have no answer. Or, rather, different answers at different times, which is the same answer as no answer. Sometimes in the middle of the night it becomes absolutely clear to me. In a dream. But in waking, when I want to grasp it, to recreate the thoughts, the words, they elude me.”